Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 5.5 Help Manual page 267

Adobe After Effects Help
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To render the animation so that the shadows appear as if created by a single light source,
you need to apply rotation before you apply the drop shadow effect.
A
A. Original layer B. Rotation applied using the Transform effect C. Drop shadow applied at the
effect stage results in a properly oriented shadow
Although you can't instruct After Effects to change the order of processing within a layer,
there are three ways to get the rendering order you want: applying the Transform effect,
including an adjustment layer above the layer, or using nesting or precomposing.
Note: You could also achieve this effect using 3D lights and shadows. See "Using lights" on
page 239.
Transform effect Apply Transform effects (choose Effect > Perspective > Transform)
when you want a transform property to render before another effect. (See "Transform" on
page 197.) These transform changes will be rendered before subsequent effects. Other
transform properties, set in the Timeline window, will be rendered last.
Adjustment layer Use an adjustment layer in your composition when you want to
change rendering order and apply transform properties or effects to more than one layer
at a time. When you apply an effect to an adjustment layer, After Effects renders the effect
after rendering all properties in the other layers. See "Creating an adjustment layer" on
page 73.
To apply an adjustment layer to some (but not all) of the layers below it, you must either
nest or precompose the adjustment layer with those layers.
Nesting or precomposing Use either nesting or precomposing to change the rendering
order while also applying an effect to continuously rasterized or collapsed layers. Precom-
posing is a form of nesting and changes the rendering order in the same way. To make an
effect render after a transform property, apply the effect to the nested composition
instead of to the layer inside that composition. See "Organizing a project using nesting"
on page 265 and "Understanding precomposing" on page 270.
For more information about gathering project files in a special location for rendering or
archiving, see the Watch folders section under "Collecting files in one location" on
page 294 and "Rendering using a watch folder (PB only)" on page 296.
Creating animations by nesting compositions
Nesting is useful when you want to apply a single transform property to a layer in more
than one way. It adds another opportunity to apply masks, effects, or transform changes.
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